Extra, Extra: Cooperation Works!

A Cooperative Learning Lesson 

To view the entire Google Presentation for this lesson, please click here.

Introduction:To introduce this lesson, Nicole and I displayed pictures related to the causes of the American Revolution for students to share the facts they learned in the Direct Instruction lesson and the generalizations they constructed in the Inquiry lesson. The students were eager and willing to share their ideas about the Boston Massacre and Boston Tea Party as well as the concepts of taxation without representation and boycotting. This time I was more purposeful in asking other students in the classroom to agree with thumbs up or disagree with thumbs down to speakers' statements. At first, some students were not indicating agreement or disagreement, and this time I knew to stop the students and specifically say, “I want to see thumbs up or thumbs down from everyone.” At one point, a student provided a correct description of the Boston Massacre, but I saw a few students with their thumbs down. I was concerned that the students had developed a misconception about the Boston Massacre, so I called upon a student to explain why she disagreed. The student indicated that she thought three people had died in the Boston Massacre with two more being mortally wounded, while the student said five people died. This provided me the opportunity to clarify the meaning of mortally wounded and indicate that different historical documents might have similar, yet slightly different reportings. This experience taught me that having students agree and disagree not only keeps them engaged in the lesson, but also helps me to clarify misconceptions. 

We had students share ideas for teamwork and how to be strong team players, and the displayed a GoAnimate video on presentation skills. The students listened intently to the GoAnimate video on presentation skills, and were able to recall and elaborate on all of the video’s tips afterward. When students were later given the opportunity to practice for their presentations, I observed students purposefully standing up to practice good posture and heard a student remind peers to make eye contact. Thus, the GoAnimate video was effective and motivating for students. Still, in practice, many students failed to follow the tips during their presentations, many looking at the floor which indicates, as should be expected, that more practice will be needed.

Development:As this was a lesson utilizing the cooperative learning method falling within the indirect/interactive strategy and social interaction model, it was imperative that students work together and learn from each other during the lesson. Thus, I informed students that they would be working in small groups to create newspapers that could have been circulating in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War and would persuade readers to join a side. I showed the students a worked example, and thoroughly explained the requirements of the project by showing them a rubric. While some groups still missed an item, the majority of requirements were met to the highest degree on the rubric. Within groups, students could be heard making statements about needing an additional item or missing an item, which indicates that providing students early access to the rubric allowed them to self-monitor throughout the task.I also informed students that I would be watching throughout the lesson to see if they were acting as team players and truly cooperating as they said they should in the introduction. Similarly, students were informed that at the end of the task they would have to evaluate each other and themselves as group and they were shown pictures of the peer and group evaluation forms in the Google Presentation. Next, I assigned students to certain roles within their groups, selecting titles and jobs that could be found on a real newspaper to try to make the task more genuine: editor, reporter, fact-checker, designer, photographer. From observation, and the accompanying anecdotal notes, it is clear that students were very focused on fulfilling their roles. On the one hand, this helped to ensure the participation of all students and encourage timely task completion. On the other hand, a few students only focused on their parts and did not collaborate with other group members for larger group decision-making which is an important skill of social interaction.   

Nicole and I opted to use anecdotal notes knowing that anecdotal notes and evaluation checklists help teachers to “track individual progress” (Levstik & Barton, 2001, p. 36). By focusing in on each individual student, I was provided a clearer picture of how students were meeting the goals of the lesson and not just how the groups’ projects were coming along. Most importantly, the anecdotal notes if collected regularly with cooperative learning lessons will allow me to track how students’ interactions are becoming more meaningful. Thus, this type of monitoring becomes more valuable if implemented over the long-term, not just one lesson.

           

Contrasting the inquiry-based lesson, this lesson was appropriately timed for student success. Overall, the students were able to successfully navigate the rubric, and create strong cooperative projects that incorporated the facts they learned from the direct instruction lesson and the idea of different points of view that they explored in the inquiry-based lesson. While I did provide some reminders about paying attention to the time, for the most part, students were able to self-regulate and plan accordingly.

The five elements of cooperative learning were facilitated throughout the lesson through careful planning. Positive interdependence was achieved by having each group complete one assignment, the newspaper, together. Thus, all students benefited from the contributions of every team member, thus encouraging all students to be part of the decision-making process. To facilitate individual accountability, all team members were responsible for the completion of their distinct roles within the group. I emphasized when introducing the task that in order to complete the project successfully, all of the roles would need to be fulfilled. The peer and self-evaluation forms also provided incentive for students to responsibly participate in the lesson. To achieve face-to-face interaction and promote social skills, students sat in unified groups and discussed ideas for how to create their newspapers. Based on the anecdotal notes and the peer evaluation forms, it is clear that students will need to continue to work on the social skills of effective leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflict management. Lastly, to facilitate group processing, students were informed in advance that after the presentation, they would complete peer and group evaluation forms. Through these forms, students had to reflect on their own experience and determine ways that they could improve their teamwork in the future. While students completed the peer evaluation form independently, for the group self evaluation form, students were provided the opportunity to converse as a group, and together generate ideas for improvement.


Closure:Surprisingly, in terms of the peer and group self evaluation forms, many of the students’ peer ratings were aligned with what I observed in anecdotal notes indicating that the students have a clear understanding of how collaborative work is supposed to look. However, many students demonstrated difficulty evaluating themselves, giving higher scores than deserved. Many students recognized that arguing with other team members took up valuable time and made them poor team players. A particular issue that was documented in both my anecdotal notes and in the group processing forms were problems surrounding students in the role of editor (leader). In two groups, the leaders received low scores from peers and were defined as “bossy.” Other groups reflected that they needed to better control their volume next time and to "not fight." 
          
 
After the twenty-five minute work period, the groups were provided 3 minutes to practice presenting their newspapers. Students practiced having strong posture and making eye contact like the GoAnimate video advised. Then, students shared their newspapers with the class. Many groups chose to incorporate the Boston Tea Party and Boston Massacre into their newspapers, but some groups added unique items like an advertisement for a blacksmith or a causes of the American Revolution word search puzzle.

 Independent Practice:The independent practice assignment required that students evaluate what they learned from working in groups and how their groups could improve for the future as the social interaction objective, and to evaluate which event in their newspapers would most cause readers to join their side on the issue as the content objective. Of the twenty students who returned the assignment, nineteen either met or surpassed the score required for mastery indicating that the lesson appropriately led students to meet the social and content learning objectives. The structure of the questions also gave me a wealth of information as to what students had learned. In particular, the question asking for at least two examples of how groups can improve in the future, resulted in students thinking in terms of better quality products and methods to increase time-management. Students reasoned that increased cooperation and the assigning of group roles allows for more work to be completed in less time. Their explanations far surpassed what I was expecting, and never would have been documented had I not specifically asked for students to provide two examples for how their groups can improve. Similarly, by asking students to evaluate which event in their newspapers would cause readers to join their side, I was able to assess students’ application of factual knowledge and the generalizations about points of view that were emphasized in earlier lessons. Therefore, this summative assessment demonstrated students' mastery of not just this lesson's objectives but also those of earlier lessons in the unit. Several students were able to reason that the Boston Massacre, because colonists died, would make readers feel sympathetic to the colonists and join the colonists’ side.

Overall, I think that this cooperative lesson was successful at promoting social interaction skills while at the same time enhancing understanding of the facts and generalizations gained in the earlier lessons. Furthermore, these three lessons came together as a unit and had students increasingly gain understanding of the causes of the American Revolution and apply it.

References

Levstik, L.S., & Barton, K.C. (2001). Doing history: Investigating with children in elementary and middle schools. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

What is Cooperative Learning? (n.d.). Retrieved April 2, 2015, from http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/cooperative/whatis.html#elements